Tuesday, June 2, 2009

Tuesdays of Praise

Sorry that this post is going out a tish bit later than normal...I have been, umm, napping. And other important things, but mostly napping.

AHEM! To the praise!
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Thankful
1 : conscious of benefit received
2 : expressive of thanks
3 : well pleased : glad
Praise
1. the act of expressing approval or admiration; commendation; laudation.
2. the offering of grateful homage in words or song, as an act of worship: a hymn of praise to God. 3. the state of being approved or admired: The king lived in praise for many years.
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It seems to me that there is a difference between praising God and thanking Him. Thanking God is important and we should do it often and with much thought. He has given us blessing upon blessing and deserves to be thanked, however, praise has nothing to do with us...it is all about God. Where thankfulness focuses on what God has done for us, praise focuses on who God is. His character, His power, His holiness, His being what we can never be.

I feel like in today's contemporary Christian culture we unintentionally focus on ourselves way more than we should.(what God has done for us, what God will do for us, how god has changed us...) We are full of thankfulness...which we should be, and can spend many an eloquent prayer time counting our blessings off one by one. But we lack in the time we log in praising God just for being who He is. If not you, I do. This is why I really wanted to do Tuesdays of praise. To find a way to honestly praise God for who He is without it being about me. It speaks in Revelation about the saints and angels and other heavenly creatures praising God over and over and over. And yet, I have a hard time doing it for more than a few minutes at a time.

I was thinking of things we could praise God about. To do it justice, it is best if you know as much about the actual character of God as you can. So one could start praising God by doing a word study on some of His characteristics. Here are just a few things (the list is by far not exhaustive) we could focus our praise of God on.

Holiness
justice
love
mercy
righteousness
grace
omnipotent
omnipresent
omniscient
truth

I feel this is an area I lack in my prayer life, as well as in my daily walk with God. He is not like me, He is Holy and deserves to be treated as such. I am thankful to Him, for more than I can even say in a day. But I need to Praise Him...for He alone is worthy.

What are you praising God for today?

Sidenote: Andy is doing well, He has been at work all day and is feeling "OK" Thanks for all the prayer.

5 comments:

Sallye said...

Cari,

I can think of no better place to find ways and reasons to praise God than in the Psalms.

I am sitting on my bed with dog and cat, reading in the Psalms and these are just a few of the praises I am lifting to my Heavenly Father.

God is my lamp, He illumines my darkness.
God is my rock, my shield, my fortress, and my hiding place.
God is my salvation.
He is my inheritance.
He sets the boundaries of where the sea can come to.
There is no where I can go that He is not already there.
He speaks and the mountains tremble.
He is the protector of the orphan and the widows.
He uphold the humble.
The universe can not contain Him, yet He lives inside of me.
More than anything else I praise God because He is.

I loved what you said about our current culture being in to what God has done, will do, and is doing in our lives. That is important to remember and to praise Him for. But we can never forget that while we can not exist without Him. He can get along very nicely without us.

A friend taught me the best way to truly praise God is to take the first three words of Psalm 23 and fill in the blank after it. The LORD is...

I am so glad that you are "not a deep thinker", and that you do not take us into the deep things of God. Ha Ha.

Praying for you and the Captain. Believing that side effects to the Chemo will be minimal at best.

God is so awesome. He loves us way to much to leave us alone.

Sallye, Elvis the dog, and Yoshi the cat.

Richard said...

Cari, I completely agree with you. Although there is some solid worship music out there, much of it is no longer praising Him for who He is, but what He does for us. We do need to be thankful for what He has done, but we also need to praise Him for just being God.
I miss you guys. See you Sunday. . .

Melissa said...

praying and PRAISING HIM today.

Anonymous said...

Before you posted this I had been thinking about praise and what it means. I found a partial definition then added a few words so this is what's been rolling around in my head for two days - Praise is inward love, joy and delight in God, turned to outward demonstration. That's what I see in you and Andy - you turn your love for Him into outward demonstration. Thank you Sweet Girl! b

R said...

I can't remember where I heard this but it's stuck with me- when we are told to rejoice in our sufferings it doesn't necessiarly mean we have to rejoice for the cause of our pain but rather in the midst of it. I've struggled praising God after our son died but I'm starting to get to the point again where I can praise Him with a glad heart. Thank you for the reminder that praise has nothing to do with us- He alone is worthy!